


The Adventures of Robin Hood

by Pies_and_Poufsouffle



Category: EOS 10 (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-09 10:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pies_and_Poufsouffle/pseuds/Pies_and_Poufsouffle
Summary: A character study of Akmazian, giving his perspective as events unfold.





	1. 1. The Lies that Bind

**Author's Note:**

> I love this podcast, and since season 3 is on the way I thought I might write some stuff to celebrate.

For a long time now, Akmazian’s life had been a life of lies.

Little lies, names or backstories or occupations. He had at least 20 aliases, or had had. They were burned now. He missed some of them. They were mostly less lonely than he was, less him than he was.

Big lies, loyalties, friendships, loves. The stuff that made you feel slightly dirty.

He told many many lies, and had accepted he would be told a few. But he had not thought there would be so many, so tangled, so dangerous.

And then the big lie. The lie they told that now defined him. And the lies they told to lead him to this point.

The life of a spy is never simple, full of deceit and betrayal and all manner of things that tarnish the soul just a little. Call Akmazian naïve, but he never expected it would be the Alliance itself that would be his downfall. Not like this.

For all his many, many flaws (and sitting alone in cargo bays provides one with quite ample time to analyse one’s own flaws) he was genuinely a true believer. He thought the Alliance, bringing people of all races together, providing refuge, promoting peace in a dangerous and uncertain galaxy, was something worth believing in, something worth dying for. What tarnish his soul received was worth it a hundredfold if the things he did helped keep those ideals alive. 

That was before he looked too close, learned things to make him doubt. He was meant to hunt out secrets and threats.  
It turned out he was just a little too good at his job.  
Not good enough to avoid what happened next though.  
Betrayed and strung up, labelled a genocidal terrorist, a Star-Destroyer. The kind of monster that children should shrink from, that sent shivers up the spine or exoskeleton or fins or whatever of every sentient life-form. He had to flee, to hide, to steal and bargain and threaten, sometimes even kill, his way through so many obstacles just to cling to survival, cling to the hope that somehow, somewhen those responsible would be brought to justice. Maybe he might clear his name, maybe not, but at the very least he would take some of them down with him. Purge their poison.

 

The worst thing, or maybe not the worst thing (there were quite a lot of bad things about being an unjustly framed terrorist) was that now he couldn't be sure. Didn’t know if the things he did, the people he hurt, the tarnish, was worth it. Had he, as he had believed, been helping make the galaxy safer? Protecting people? Doing the dark deeds that had to be done so everyone else could stride on towards the light? Or had it all been a lie, right from the start? He might even have been helping in whatever sinister agenda they had, might have been hurting everyone. He might never know. How he hated them. Now everything he’d done was dirty. Nothing left without tarnish. How dare they tar him with the stink of their treachery. How dare they remove any pride he might have had in his work.

Not that he was particularly proud of the things he was doing now. Survival, always a challenge, was now near impossible. Almost the only thing he had to live off was a mostly unearned reputation for ruthlessness, which didn’t get you the nicest of allies. He tried his best, just to hurt those that deserved it. Smuggle things that whilst not necessarily legal, probably weren’t going to get people killed. Make sure his victims were guiltier than he was. Occasionally get involved in something that might actually do some good to someone, help the downtrodden, protect the helpless. The sort of thing pirates and smugglers with moral urgings were supposed to do. Sometimes he could almost justify it to himself. Mostly he just wallowed in self-loathing, clinging to the fairy tales of noble bandits and lovable rogues he had loved as a child as his one source of hope.

The Silent Storm, for all she didn’t look like much, was fast and stealthy. He’d had her for a long old while, and his erstwhile employers didn’t know anything about her. At least one old friend was still faithful. Could still help him evade the dangers that dogged his every step. That his best friend was an inanimate object, not even one with an AI to justify it, was possibly a little sad. But ships were always a little bit alive, the hum of the engine more familiar to him now than any human voice. As she endeavoured, spluttering, to start despite the haphazard maintenance and hasty patch jobs that dogged her as she limped around the galaxy, it was hard to believe that she didn't have a little bit of a soul.

 

EOS 10 was as good a place to base himself as any. It was large enough to make him one face in thousands, insignificant enough not to be too high security. Obscure enough he could hope the people chasing him wouldn’t look too close, or at least not too many people would get hurt if they did. It was also a good place for someone involved with the black market too. Plenty of customers, not too much established competition. The last thing he needed was for any of the big players getting sniffy at him for encroaching on their patch. A terrorist was quite the haul, and despite the saying there wasn’t much honour among thieves. Not in the real world anyway.

It wasn’t too hard to slip in undetected and make a base in one of the vast networks of unused cargo bays and maintenance tunnels. He’d acquired some crew of sorts, various minor miscreants and rogues who could be trusted to follow his orders and not get too many smart ideas about betraying their Captain. His reputation helped with that a little. He’d had a brief fancy about uniforms in Lincoln green, but he suspected that might have sparked a mutiny if nothing else did. Besides smugglers didn’t really have uniforms. Spies neither come to that. Nothing that might show your true allegiance.

It wasn’t the friendliest of abodes. He’d managed in worse spots of course, but never for this long, never with this much trouble at his back. The loneliness, if nothing else, could drive a man insane. His crew were company of sorts, but none wanted to get to know him personally. Particularly since despite his many attempts, no one ever believed his claims of innocence. Most were terrified, and the ones that weren’t weren’t generally the kind of guys you’d want to have a drink with. The closest thing he had to friends were the clients willing to come to him for goods, and that was all strictly business. He didn’t know how he could possibly begin to approach exposing a vast, dangerous conspiracy from here. He had to try. One last service to the Alliance he once believed in so much.

One last chance to be a hero.


	2. 2. Deals and Desperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little more complicated for the falsely-accused ex-spy fugitive. Which is impressive.

2\. Deals and Desperation 

 

It was somewhat surprising to him that one of his biggest clients became some deposed-despot dishwasher. Levi wasn’t too bright, but he seemed to have more connections than you might think was possible, and quite considerable funds. He was occasionally a source of mild annoyance, but it wasn’t till several months into his arrangement that he became a liability. 

What could possibly have persuaded the sometime-prince-mosttime-dishboy that bringing three Alliance officers to him was a good idea? Telling them, that he, the dreaded Akmazian, was onboard the station? Now he would have to work out a way to escape without killing these probably perfectly innocent officers or getting himself or them captured, killed or assassinated by conspiracy agents. They were medical officers, or at least according to Levi, the idiot. That was something at least. There was a vaccine he’d been in the process of helping get to the plague victims in the Euclidean System, without all that bureaucracy that was getting people killed. That was a negotiating point. Surely any medical officer would do anything to help prevent a plague wiping out a whole system. The vaccine was going there anyway, but they didn’t need to know that. Maybe he could weigh the lives of the billions living there against them reporting him instantly. Maybe. It was better than nothing. Why did his life have to be so complicated?

Well he was a spy being framed for stellar terrorism by a shadowy conspiracy that had embedded itself within the most powerful government in the galaxy. That was sort of why.

But still.

When he first saw them, he had to admit he was somewhat taken aback. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting but it wasn’t a scrawny old man, a tiny woman who looked prepared to fight everyone there, or the most beautiful person he had ever seen. If he were classically minded he might think of Apollo, perfectly sculpted cheekbones, clear eyes, the physique of a demigod, it was almost enough to throw Akmazian off his game. Not quite, he hadn’t survived this long by getting distracted by a pretty face. Although admittedly he’d never met a face quite this pretty. They kept their composure pretty well with his dramatic entrance too. They almost certainly weren’t alliance spies, the only spies that would be sent after him were ones intimately involved with the conspiracy and certainly better armed than these folks. Wouldn’t bother with the introductions neither.

It was nice to know that by the surprise in pretty-boy’s voice, he didn’t look too much like a star-destroyer, though what that might look like he didn’t quite know. Obviously, someone hadn’t been paying too much attention to the broadcasts of his appearance, along with reward, that were common viewing across most of the sectors in this galaxy. He bashed them about a bit, played his part. His curiosity got the better of him a little, they thought he was the biggest bad guy this side of the galactic centre point, and yet… They didn’t even seem to be that scared of him, too busy bickering and snarking at each other to you know, quake in fear. They were pretty cavalier. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned. He didn’t seem afraid, in fact his biggest concern seemed to be the embarrassment of exposing, his admittedly pretty freaky looking, penis. The freakiness was mostly the rather concerning colour. It looked pretty uncomfortable. It was also a record for meeting a hot guy and getting his pants off, though this was somewhat cheating. If he had any doubts about the genuineness of their story, then they were put to rest. No one would come up with something this stupid. Command weren’t creative enough for one thing.

Of course, pretty-boy was smart too, his little plan to capture the galaxy’s most fearsome criminal was impressive if somewhat suicidal. If Akmazian was actually a mass murderer, he would have guaranteed the deaths of himself and his colleagues and Akmazian’s ship would have been three sectors away by the time security launched after him. It would be a close call, but Akmazian was ready to cut loose at a minute’s notice. As it was it was lucky he had the vaccine plan on hand. Surely such a principled man, a man of medicine, wouldn’t let a system die if he thought he could prevent it. No one needed to get hurt today. He could even fix the penile problem, and thus avoid the penal one. Or so he hoped.

It seemed he was causing pretty-boy a great deal of internal turmoil. He was somewhat sympathetic, especially since it was all so unnecessary, since Akmazian was in fact innocent. It didn’t surprise him that they weren’t willing to take that at face value, though it would have been nice. These were definitely the most respectable, reputable and innocent individuals he had had the pleasure of interacting with for a while. Which was a bit of a marker of how badly things were going to be honest. Regardless, if he could convince them of the nature of the conspiracy against him then might have the measliest fraction of a hope of convincing a courtroom. Not great, but better than he had had up to this point. He might be able to get a character witness at least. Not that such speculation was useful right now. These people despised him, and it would only be their desire to save the lives of others that might stop them from instantly handing him over to the authorities for trial, or more likely to disappear never to be seen or heard from again, save as the bogeyman to scare baby Alliance officers into obedience. 

“It doesn’t have to be a negotiation at all.”

That’s right Doc think about it. Why would the man they were telling him he was do this, why would he spare them? Why would he offer the vaccine? Pretty boy was smart, the old one too. The nurse also, if the way she was assessing every exit and the number of his goons guarding them was anything to go by. They could work out that something here didn’t fit, that there must be more to the story.

They had to.

If he was the man they thought he was, they would all be dead, and he would be gone. They weren’t, he wasn’t. Something didn’t fit. Either this was all an incredibly elaborate double-bluff or Akmazian was not a mass-murdering psychopath. Surely there was enough doubt to make them hesitate. Enough to make them accept his deal. If he couldn’t persuade them this time, maybe there might be other opportunities. He tried not to seem to desperate, but this was the closest thing to an opportunity that had come his way in a while.

They accepted the deal. He didn’t trust them to keep it, of course. Trust? In this economy? He was idealistic, he wasn’t stupid. They would be out of here within the hour, wait a couple of rotations and then scout if the coast was clear. He’d rather stick around EOS 10. He had connections here.

Besides, the people were intriguing.

Doctor Dalias. There was something nice about the cadence of it. He certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more of Doctor Dalias. Though that would probably mean he’d betrayed him to High Command, which would be inconvenient. For some reason Ryan Dalias’s good opinion was something he dearly, deeply desired. 

He was so bad at this.


End file.
